I’m Martha Jurksaitis (aka Cherry Kino!), an English analogue photographer and filmmaker, and in April and August 2013 I went to Finland on an artist residency in the Finnish forest. It used to be a school, and my bedroom was an old classroom! While I was there, I became completely obsessed with exploring the place and the surprisingly raw and passionate feelings it gave rise to inside me, and I did this through taking hundreds of polaroids and writing poetry. After a year of fine-tuning and preparation, and some amazing help from my friend and Production Assistant Paisley Boyd, my project is now ready to take the form of a luscious, 160 page, lithographic full colour artist's book, from me, to you!

Woodshed

I have taken over 130 polaroid images and written 14 poems in this wondrous place, and I really want to share them with you! Finland at the turn of spring is a total wonderland - the thick ice falling suddenly from the roof with a crash, the heavy, deep snow that is there one day and has virtually disappeared the next, as spring makes its intense, rapid entrance and flowers and butterflies suddenly appear.

Moth

The lake was still frozen solid in April (there were a few scary moments when I heard some cracks while I was standing on it taking photographs!), and I saw fresh elk tracks in the snow, but in August it became a luscious lagoon for boat-rowing and swimming amongst the reeds.

Lady in the Lake

Vessel

I used a variety of instant film, including expired large format (4x5) Polaroid film that I shot using a wooden pinhole camera. Developing these large images involved holding the precious image against my skin to warm it for 90 seconds or more, in the freezing Finnish weather, before peeling it open to reveal what the forest wanted to reveal, in an array of colours from pink to red, to blue and yellow. I also used a lot of 'Impossible Project' instant film stock, both black and white and colour, and spent many many hours knee deep in snow in wild forests.

Rose Forest

I am in some of the photographs myself, sometimes naked (I used a camera with a timer for these). It felt very instinctive to do that while I was there, even though I nearly froze! My poems are also extremely personal and exposed - in fact, some are so revealing that I thought twice about including them, but if you can’t be courageous with your art, all is lost :)

Flesh and Bone

Thighs and Sahti

As well as images of people and place, nature and patterns, there are also some playful experiments, such as berries I picked which I physically mashed onto a milky polaroid, and even a rayogram - I laid translucent freshly picked red berries on the film and flashed it with a hand torch to expose it. The poetry is in both English and Finnish translation - brilliantly translated by Kirsi Kujala - so you can marvel at the mesmerising Finnish language. I warmly invite you to share this experience with me!

But to make this book a reality, I need your help! All the creative work has been done, and now I need to pay for the printing of the book itself. The money raised will be used 100% for printing and publishing the book to the highest standard possible, with lithographic printing. Only approximately 200 copies will ever be made so the book you receive will be numbered, and a very limited edition indeed!

Thank you SO much for supporting my project! I really can't wait to share this book with you!

Tuesday, 4 February 2014

Here's my latest project! It's a collaboration between me and my good friend and musician Kathy Alberici. We were commissioned by CTM Festival in Berlin, and this is what we came up with. We've been working on it for months, and the first live performance was on Saturday 1st Feb in Berlin!

Here's some info about it:

Analogue filmmaker Martha Jurksaitis and multi-instrumentalist Kathy Alberici present a "Sonic Portrait of the Funkhaus Nalepastraße", using a mixed-media approach to capture elements of history and ecology of the home of the former DDR National Broadcasting Corporation examining the acoustic, visual and atmospheric environments of the building. The project is one of two created as part of the Berlin Current Call for Works.

Kathy and I collaborate under the name 'Polymitas'. We'd really love to tour the piece too, so if you'd like to invite us sometime that would be great. :) I processed all of it by hand, and Kathy worked with a lot of magnetic tape, including some we salvaged from the Funkhaus itself.

Featuring guitar by Calvin Xang and bass by Shigeru Ishihara.

Jan St Werner (Mouse on Mars) chose us as one of his top picks of CTM this year, which was a great honour, and we were featured by Wire Magazine, who also premiered our first collaboration online - a Super 8 film with soundtrack called 'The Garden of Polymitas'.

Saturday, 30 November 2013

To all my lovely readers, this post is part of an application process for an Artquest & M4Gastatelier residency I would dearly love to do in Amsterdam. Wish me luck! x

Going Dutch Application - Martha Jurksaitis (Cherry Kino)

Hi!

A website at www.cherrykino.com is currently being built, so I am using my blog for the application to 'Going Dutch'. Please find below a selection of 5 images followed by 5 film works, for your consideration. I have included relevant information above each, plus a direct link for each of the films. All my film work is hand-processed.

Riding Pink, Little Hood (Polaroid Spectra, 2013)A rose-coloured re-visioning of Little Red Riding Hood (the title is also a reference to the clitoris). The feminine archetypes of the girl who strays from the path (Little Red Riding Hood) and the first woman (Eve) are mingled together, in a quest for knowledge through a journey into the forest of self, putting the wolf skin on (inspired by the book 'Women who Run with the Wolves'), and eating the apple knowingly, staring right back. This and its sister piece (not shown here) are part of a collection of Polaroids I made in Finland, which are being made into a book that I am self-publishing, 'Feels Like Velvet, Feels Like Rain: Poetry and Polaroids from the Finnish Forest'.

Untitled (Polaroid 4x5, 2013)This image is also being included in my book. It was made with a pinhole 4x5 camera using expired Polaroid colour film. I allowed the film to develop by placing it directly over my womb, under my clothes and furs, in the freezing Finnish winter. It is untitled.

Nail Art (16mm, 2013, can be presented both as a single screening and looped installation)This is a still image taken from my 16mm film entitled 'Nail Art'. I made the film entirely using nail art materials - nail varnishes and nail art stickers, nothing else. It's a visceral response to the craze for nail art, and considers whether nail art is wholly at odds with female freedom, as an activity that requires maintaining a veneer at the cost of empowered physical action in the world, or whether it's a modern-day equivalent to patchwork and a piecing together of feminine community and the emergence of a fresh and active aesthetics. Nail varnish and filmmaking do have some parallels - both involve toxic chemicals coming into contact with lungs and hands, both contain organic substances (keratin / gelatine respectively), and both can be somewhat preserved through the use of a sealant (clear top-coat / film guard).

I chose to make my film on 16mm Ektachrome, a film stock now discontinued and considered perhaps 'dead'. The film you see is the original, which I processed with my hands, and which will progressively become more and more worn by the projector each time it is played. I won't try to 'patch up' my film (or nails). I will let it gloriously scratch and wear off through being well and truly used. Nothing is pristine. Underneath their attractive coatings, nails are full of bacteria and dirt. My film is living and dying at the same time, perpetually moving. Nails keep growing after death. Is the same true for analogue film?

Portuguese Woman Of War (Super 8 & 16mm, 2013/14, single screenfilm)

These are two still images from a film I'm currently working on. The film combines footage I shot in Cornwall with footage I am going to shoot at Almendres (Portugal) this December, at the Megalithic stone circles there. It is a musing on the Portuguese Man-O-War ship (most ships were considered to be female before this ship model was made); the fascinating jellyfish-type creature named after it, which is actually a colony of creatures itself; and the connections between Cornish and Portuguese Celtic practices revolving around Megalithic stone circles. It is also an exploration of lunar energy and cycles, and involves both Super 8 and 16mm footage.

Sunday, 22 September 2013

Recently my friend Kathy Alberici and I won a commission to create a new audio visual piece for the CTM festival in Berlin! I went over to Berlin a few weeks ago to get started - our project is based around the 'Funkhaus', the old broadcasting station in the former GDR, East Berlin. It's an amazing place... Loads to explore. We found some magnetic tape, and got some sounds and footage, and generally got familiar with the buildings. We even got into the main concert hall, which I'm told is very rare... it was open for cleaning, and we witnessed a big grand piano being hoisted up the stairs and into the auditorium. We also collected the sounds of the wood creaking beneath our bare feet as we walked around.

Some news on my films:

'Bird' was selected to screen at Colour Out of Space festival in Brighton! It's on now!

'Salt' and 'Peach' are currently touring venues in North America as part of the Frenkel Defects programme, curated by Kevin Rice.

'Peach' is also due to show at the great TIE festival in Colorado this month too!

I also made a new film not long ago called 'Attraction', which I include below for you to watch if you feel like it. :) It was originally shot on Super 8 and then I used the JK optical printer to blow it up to 16mm in different ways, and then I edited it a bit by hand, and then did the final edit on a digital programme. Phew! A long process. But totally worth it - I'm really happy with the result. I showed it on Light Night in Leeds this October, to about 360 people in one night! Bonkers, felt so high afterwards. x

Here's a film 'Alana and the Carnival' that I made for my niece on her 4th birthday, of Chapeltown Carnival! The song is 'Amor em Jacuma' by Brazilian musician Lucas Santtana (it just seemed to work so well).

And finally, here's my film 'Salt'. The digitisation is not great, it's very rough and jumpy (the original is not like that), and I will replace it as soon as I get a professional telecine of it. I hope you enjoy it! Comments always welcome too. :)

Wednesday, 11 September 2013

I made a film on 16mm a few months ago called 'Nail Art'. Here's the synopsis, the film, and some still images too. I hope you like it!

'Nail Art' is a 16mm film made entirely using nail varnishes and nail stickers as my materials. It's a visceral response to the craze for nail art, and considers whether nail art is wholly at odds with female freedom, as an activity that requires maintaining a veneer at the cost of empowered physical action in the world, or whether it's a modern-day equivalent to patchwork and a piecing together of feminine community and the emergence of a fresh and active aesthetics. Nail varnish and filmmaking do have some parallels - both involve toxic chemicals coming into contact with lungs and hands, both contain organic substances (keratin / gelatine respectively), and both can be somewhat preserved through the use of a sealant (clear top-coat / film guard).

I chose to make my film on 16mm Ektachrome, a film stock now discontinued and considered perhaps 'dead'. The film you see is the original, which I processed with my hands, and which will progressively become more and more worn by the projector each time it is played. I won't try to 'patch up' my film (or nails). I will let it gloriously scratch and wear off through being well and truly used. Nothing is pristine. Underneath their attractive coatings, nails are full of bacteria and dirt. My film is living and dying at the same time, perpetually moving. Nails supposedly keep growing after death. Is the same true for analogue film?

Tuesday, 10 September 2013

I wanted to write a post about some of the filmmakers I've been really happy to discover recently.

The first is Leslie Supnet, an animator based in Winnipeg, Canada. Her film 'Sun Moon Stars Rain' is so wonderful! I'm really interested in how filmmakers and musicians collaborate at the moment, having just made three music videos myself, and one film/poetry/music collaboration, and Leslie's film really nails it in my view. I love it. Here it is:

The next person I want to flag up is Dinorah de Jesus Rodriguez. Dinorah sent me an email earlier this summer about a post I'd written on Frameworks to do with watercolours made especially for photographs, that I used for applying directly to the film strip. I got intrigued and looked at her work on vimeo, and it really blew me away too. Here's some of Dinorah's work: